In high school, I went through a Crichton phase the way many teenagers go through a Stephen King phase. I think Jurassic Park might be my favorite (although, as soon as I declare that, I start to wonder about Congo or Eaters of the Dead...). Anyway, Jurassic Park has stuck with me, because of or in spite of the film series, as one of those books that mixed science and thriller in just the right way. Horror made mundane. It's the kind of thriller that makes being scared fun (for me, at least -- I like my killers literally reptilian, not metaphorically).